Microfabrication and nanofabrication processes to form features such as channels and trenches often involve complex masking and etching steps. These processes, while successful, require highly expensive equipment and procedures to conduct micro- or nanofabrication steps.
Some efforts have been made to find simpler ways to conduct microfabrication and nanofabrication. Microscale scribing, for instance, can be used to produce grooves, or pockets including grooves, of sub-micron depths. As an example, Atomic Force Microscopes (AFMs) have been used to perform nanofabrication by using the scanning probe as a tool. A typical AFM scribing process drags an AFM tip along a surface to cause a mechanical or chemical change in the surface. AFM probes including Si3N4 probes, diamond tipped probes, and diamond coated silicon probes have been used for scribing. AFM scribing has been used to create grooves with sub-micron depths in materials including Al, Au—Pd, SiO2, Ni, and Si. AFMs allow for highly precise control of scribing forces normal to a workpiece, and they provide a way to perform in-situ metrology of the resulting grooves following production.
However, the working volumes of these AFMs tend to be very limited. Further, the length of the scribes is typically limited to between a few microns and tens of microns, and the speed of the piezoelectric stages of these machines (between 0.006 and 1.2 mm/min, with a maximum speed typically in the range of 1.2-1.5 mm/min) is slower than would be desirable for production purposes, particularly for larger but still highly accurate grooves, including those with curvilinear shapes. The number of passes used to scribe a single groove can be, for instance, as high as one thousand. The low speed and short scribing length result, in part, from limitations in the piezoelectric actuators used in AFMs.
Other methods of producing long microgrooves include laser scribing and diamond scribing. Laser scribing is capable of rapidly cutting long grooves in materials including stainless steel, nickel, tungsten, and silicon. Laser scribing, however, provides less control over the shape of each groove cross-section than mechanical cutting processes provide.
A high speed scribing device shuttle unit exists, which can be equipped to the Fanuc Robonano α-OiB machine, and this machine can rapidly scribe nanoscale high precision grooves using a rigid diamond tool. However, the Fanuc Robonano α-OiB machine achieves this capability via extreme rigidity of the tool and machine structure, through the use of 1 nm resolution encoders, and through the use of static air bearings on all machine axes. As a result, the Fanuc Robonano α-OiB machine is extremely expensive.
As the demands of miniaturization technology grow, it is desirable to overcome shortcomings of traditional scribing systems and methods.